Alleviating Students' Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety through Cooperative Learning

1. International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) Volume 3 Issue 5, August 2019 Available Online: www.ijtsrd.com e-ISSN: 2456 – 6470 Alleviating Students’ Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety through Cooperative Learning Pale Mon Department of English, University of Computer Studies, Thaton, Mon, Myanmar How to cite this paper: Pale Mon "Alleviating Students’ Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety through Cooperative Learning" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456- 6470, Volume-3 | Issue-5, August 2019, https://doi.org/10.31142/ijtsrd26590 Copyright © 2019 by author(s) and International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development Journal. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by /4.0) Currently, Students are taught all four skills at the University of Computer Studies, Thaton (UCST). Although they are good at learning other skills, they are lack in oral ability. When they are asked to speak English in the class or in front of the teacher, many of them find their minds blank and their tongues tied. They feel uncomfortable, irregular heartbeat, perspiration, stumbling and an inability to act. These few symptoms block their capacity to act and speak. Through speaking the students are directly to express their self in many situations and it can be a challenging task for them. Thus, they easily become speechless where they feel insecure. With feelings of discomfort and insecurity, they find it difficult to share their opinions and participate in class discussions. They become worried and anxious in language classroom. One of the highest challenges in English speaking for the students is anxiety. According to the University of Cambridge Counseling Service (2012), anxiety is defined as a common response to threatening situation in both physical and emotional reactions; the degree of feeling anxious depends on individual past experiences, beliefs, and attitude. Speaking activities requiring in front of class and on spot performance produce the most anxiety from the students’ perspective and learners experience more anxiety over speaking than other language skills (Gurbuz, 2014: 3). As such, anxiety in the classroom is mostly recognized as a negative factor that lowers the learner’s proficiency because ABSTRACT This paper presents the alleviation of students’ foreign language speaking anxiety (FLSA) by using cooperative learning in English Foreign Language classrooms. To investigate the cause factors of students’ FLSA, both quantitative and qualitative methods were used. The quantitative dada were collected by two questionnaires before and after cooperative learning session. Qualitative method was chosen through face to face interview to get in depth data or information about students’ FLSA. The results showed that there were many reasons for why students encounter speaking anxiety and using cooperative learning was believed to alleviate students’ FLSA significantly. KEYWORDS: speaking anxiety; alleviate; cooperative learning INTRODUCTION English as a foreign language has importance role in a global communication. The importance of learning English in today’s world has gained an acceleration, the speed of which is more than expected due to the developments in the communication need among people all across the world. In the era of modernization and internationalization, students need to improve their language skills to communicate with the rest of the world to solve their problems. In learning language skills, speaking is the skill that the students have to master for communicating each other among four language skills. IJTSRD26590 pp.1368-1375, BY 4.0) they have difficulty in thinking clearly under the anxious moment. This concept was supported by MacIntyre, (1995, 96) who clearly described that anxiety can cause anxious students to separate their attention to different scenarios at the same time; they need to concentrate on both the assignment and their response to it. For example, while the anxious student is giving an answer to a question in class, he is not only forced to focus on giving the answer to the teacher’s question and but also on assessing the social inference of the answer. That is why the students do not quite succeed in learning. Meanwhile, students who are not good at English are likely to have more anxiety because they think that studying English language is too difficult for them. Their anxiety can generate the feeling of dislike and lack of enthusiasm in learning. In order to assist them to achieve the intended performance goals in the target language, teachers should be more aware of students’ anxiety and arouse students’ motivation to speak up confidently and fluently in an English speaking class. LITERATURE REVIEW Language anxiety is viewed as one of the hindrances for language learners from their successful achievement in a high level of proficiency in a foreign language. According to Worde (2003), more than half a foreign language learners experienced some degree of anxiety. It is also argued that language learning anxiety may pose potential problems for language learners, Kondo (2009). In other words, learners @ IJTSRD | Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD26590 | Volume – 3 | Issue – 5 | July - August 2019 Page 1368

2. International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470 who feel anxious in their foreign language may find their study less enjoyable. Moreover, he also added that the learners who feel anxious may have problems such as reduced words production and difficulty in understanding spoken instruction. Horwitz (1986) believes that anxiety about speaking a certain language can affect students’ performance. It can influence the quality of oral language production and makes individual appear less fluent than they really are. According to this explanation the teacher may consciously create a communal and friendly atmosphere, and may also suggest the students take a proactive role in creating such an environment. Categories of Anxiety Broadly speaking, anxiety can be divided into three types, Elis (1994: 479-480) namely: trait anxiety, state anxiety and situation-specific anxiety. Drawing on work in general psychology defines; A.Trait anxiety is as ‘a more permanent predisposition to be anxious’. It is best viewed as an aspect of personality. It is the tendency of a person to be nervous or feel anxious irrespective of the situation he/she is exposed to. Indeed, such anxiety is a part of a person’s character and hence is permanent and difficult, if not impossible, to get rid of. A person who is trait anxious is likely to feel anxious in a variety of situation. Once the anxiety becomes a trait one, it will hinder language learning. Furthermore, this idea is likely to be relevant with what (Spielberger,1983) states that trait anxiety is defined as an individual tendency to be anxious in any situation. B.State anxiety is as apprehension that is experience at the particular moment in time as a response to a definite situation (Spielberger,1983 ). It is a combination of trait and situation-specific anxiety. To follow Horwitz (1986) state anxiety is referred to a situational anxiety. As the name implies, this type of anxiety arises in a particular situation and hence is not permanent. It is nervousness or tension at the particular moment in response to some outside stimulus. It occurs because learners are exposed to a particular situation or event that is stressful to them. C.Specific-situation anxiety refers to the persistent and multi-faceted nature of some anxieties. It is aroused by a specific type of situation or event such as public speaking, examinations, or class participation (Ellis, 1994: 480). On the other hand, (Spielberger, 1983) says that situation specific anxiety is defined as an individual tendency to be anxious in a particular time and situation. Situation specific anxiety can be seen as a subcategory of trait anxiety experienced at a given context. Thus, language anxiety can be included in situation specific anxiety. Factors of Anxiety Learning anxiety can be attributed into several factors. (Horwitz, 1986) argues that in the context of foreign language learning, learner may feel anxious due to problem related to three dimension of anxiety. They are a. communication apprehension, b. fear of negative evaluation and c. a general feeling of anxiety. The description of these components will lay the foundation for the comprehend the source of anxiety. A.Communication apprehension Communication apprehension is a fear or anxiety about actual or anticipated communication with other individuals, and is a behavioral trait related to the psychological constructs of shyness and reticence (McCroskey, 1984). On the other hand, Horwitz et al (1986:128) define communication apprehension as “a type of shyness characterized by fear or anxiety about communication with other people”. Relevant to the statement mention above, Tanver (2007:13) argues that communication apprehension may exist in most everyday communication situations, or may even be part of a general anxiety trait that arises in many facets of an individual’s life and learners’ personality traits such as shyness, quietness, and reticence are considered to frequently precipitate communication apprehension. B.Fear of Negative Evaluation Fear of negative evaluation is an extension of the second component of foreign language anxiety because it is not limited to test-taking situations; rather, it may occur in any social, evaluative situation, such as interviewing for a job or speaking in foreign language class (Horwitz et al., 1986: 127). It is also boarder in the sense that it pertains not only to the teachers’ evaluation of the students but also to the perceived reaction of other students as well (Tanveer, 2007: 14). C.Test anxiety An understanding test anxiety is also related to the discussion of foreign language anxiety. Test anxiety, as explain by Horwitz at al. (cited in Tanveer, 2007: 12) refers to a type of performance anxiety stemming from a fear of failure. Test anxiety is quite pervasive in language classroom because of its continuous performance evaluative nature. As test anxiety is treated differently when dealing with oral communication, the other two components can be focused on in examining the attitudes in English oral communication classroom. Furthermore, other researchers, Boonkit (2010), Liu (2007), and others mention other common factors causing students’ anxiety includes lack of vocabulary, lack of confidence, fear of making mistakes and being laughed at, lack of preparation and shyness. Lack of vocabulary knowledge could lead to the students’ difficulties in language reception and productions and becomes an obstacle that hinders them to express themselves in English. It can be said that lack of vocabulary was identified as a main cause for students’ anxiety in oral English classroom. “I always nervous when I have to speak English spontaneously because I don’t know the words to say” statement like this clearly shows that the students often become nervous in oral class. This occurred because they only have limited words. Inability to express the idea because of lack of confidence is one of another cause of anxiety in oral English classroom. Students’ lack of confidence usually occurs when they realize that his/ her partner do not understand while they are having a conversation. In this case, they tend to keep silence rather than keep speaking English. Regarding to this, the students’ lack of confidence in speaking English will influence their speaking ability and aural comprehension. Students’ fear of making mistakes in speaking English has been a common issue, especially in EFL context. The students @ IJTSRD | Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD26590 | Volume – 3 | Issue – 5 | July - August 2019 Page 1369

3. International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470 feared making mistakes and being laugh at, which made them (very) anxious when speaking English to other in class. Fear of making mistakes becomes of one of the main factor for the students’ reluctance to speak English in the classroom. Moreover, this fear is linked to the issue of correction and negative evaluation. This influenced by the students’ fear of being laughed at by other students. In addition, the students feel frightened at the idea of making mistakes as they are worried that their friends will laugh at them and receive negative evaluation from their peers if they make mistakes in speaking. As result, they worry about how they will sound, and they stop participating in the speaking activity. Likewise, lack of preparation also caused many students to become anxious when speaking English in class, Liu (2007: 130). He states that more students attributed their anxiety to lack of preparation and expressed that they would feel less anxious and more confident to speak English with preparation. Thus, it is clear that preparation could enhance students’ confidence in speaking English though it might not be able to get rid of anxiety. Shyness is another source of anxiety experienced by the students. It is one of difficulties that every student faces while learning a new language and a factor that cause students reluctant to speak in English class. This indicates that shyness could be a source of problem in students’ activities especially in speaking class. Furthermore, speaking in front of people is one of the more common phobias that the students encounter and feeling of shyness makes their mind go “blank” forget what to say. In addition, shyness may be caused by the low self- esteem and an accompanying fear of rejection. Teachers, as well as educators, should put these affective variables into consideration to have a better understanding of their students' needs and interests. In the literature, preparing the students mainly for the exam, using traditional methods of teaching without considering the students' needs, and teachers' negative evaluation were among the main causes of speaking anxiety caused by the teacher. Yahya (2013) further claimed that students lacked competency in speaking, and most have difficulties with pronunciation due to teachers' use of traditional methods of teaching, which made them unwilling to communicate in the target language. The fear of being evaluated by teachers was considered one of the causes shared by students. From the source above, paying attention to this aspect is also quite important in order to help the students do their best in their speaking performance in the classroom. Students had a fear of making mistakes in front of their teachers as they conceived them as more competent in English. Language anxiety plays a crucial role in foreign language learning. This notion has been pointed out in several studies revealing a negative correlation between high levels of anxiety and achievement in language learning. Therefore, several studies attempted to find some ways to help learners reduce their anxiety. Worde (2003) also examined students’ perspectives on foreign language anxiety. The researcher stated that a sense of community is a factor that students believed to be helpful in reducing anxiety. In other words, they feel less anxious when working with partners and in small groups. So, working in cooperative learning environment is believed to reduce anxiety (Kagan, 1994). Cooperative learning is characterized by several common elements that include:(1) positive interdependence, where the group has a common goal and each member’s contribution is important to the group’s success; (2) face-to- face group interactions in which each member is encouraged to participate, help others succeed, and learn from each other; (3) individual and group accountability in which members divide the work and are individually responsible for specific tasks; (4) development of small group social skills involving negotiating and use of group interaction skills; and (5) group processing, which involves students reflecting on the group’s experience (Johnson and Johnson, 1994 cited in Nakahashi, 2007). Cooperative learning activities have been employed with EFL students due to the fact that they can foster active participation, a sense of community, emotional support and provide more social interaction for students. How Cooperative Learning Alleviates Students’ Anxiety Since cooperative learning helps to create supportive environment, students are not much stressed and have reduced anxiety in class. This is probably because students possess a sense of community. According to Worde (2003), when students feel alone with no friends, they are “more self-conscious. Working in groups or having studying partners is suggested as one way for students to interact. Traditionally, classes always consist of good students and weak students. The weak students sit in isolation as they lose confidence in their ability to learn English. Working in groups is, therefore, believed to help solve this problem. It can help shy students who don’t like to speak in a large class become comfortable speaking out in smaller groups. Group members can complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses in English. Each student has a different background and ability in English which he or she can bring to the group. For example, one student might have a strong vocabulary that can supply to students with a strong background in grammar. Furthermore, poor students will benefit from interaction with better ones, and good students will feel proud that they play an important role in helping their weaker classmates. Students can learn other members’ intention as well as create interpersonal and team skills. By working in groups, students have more opportunities to talk and to share ideas, so they can see how their peers think and create new ideas. In addition, cooperative learning decreases competitiveness and individualism opportunities to actively construct or transform the knowledge among students. Cooperative learning provides a less anxiety-producing context in terms of discussing, creating, and thinking in a group, rather than in a whole class. In such an atmosphere, students may feel more comfortable to study and try out new ideas. This concept is in accordance with Worde’s (2003) who found that the participants in his study identified having a relaxing classroom environment as paramount in reducing anxiety and in gaining motivation to learn. Therefore, a cooperative learning environment is believed to reduce anxiety and provide more opportunities for students to produce language (Kagan, 1994). but increases @ IJTSRD | Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD26590 | Volume – 3 | Issue – 5 | July - August 2019 Page 1370

4. International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470 In addition, a relaxing environment or atmosphere is likely related to how the teacher conducted the class. Many studies have been done to investigate an impact of cooperative learning approach on students’ learning anxiety in an EFL class. Take an example of Nakahashi’s study (2007), which used structured cooperative learning activities to reduce language anxiety of freshmen students in Akita University by providing a non-threatening, supportive environment that led to language skills development. The results revealed that while the students’ learning anxiety reduced, their language proficiency scores improved significantly. Therefore, this work can be used to support its effectiveness in terms of language anxiety reduction. something personal about each of them. Students use a checklist as they walk around the room trying to find a person who has a certain characteristic. When students find “someone who drives a truck” or “someone who was born at home,” they write that person’s name on their checklist of paper and move on to the next person with the hope that person meets one of the other characteristics on the master list. The goal is to meet and talk to as many people as possible within the time limit in order to put one name by each of the characteristics. B.A Cup of Conversation This is a good warmer activity to improve students’ fluency. In this activity, students write one question on separate slips of paper and put the slips of paper into a coffee cup. Each student picks a slip of paper from the cup. They read the question, find a partner and talk to each other for two minutes. Change partners as often as they feel that they are still enjoying and getting one thing out of the conversation. There’s no need to correct them during this activity. Let them talk uninhibited as much as possible. METHODOLOGY Participants Seventy two students from first year to fifth year in UCST took part in the questionnaire survey and the participants’ age ranged from 18-22 years. The sample consisted of twenty-seven male and forty five female students. They all were taking the English Language Proficiency class at UCST in order to improve their English language skills. It was opened after finishing the final exam in 2017 and took ten hours per week for two months. C.Doctor’s Appointment A doctor’s appointment will get the students used to particular medical terminology. Each role play serves a specific purpose when practicing speaking. It allows the student to become more familiar with certain terms. Five of the teachers from English Language Department were also participated in interview to support the survey and to give more information about students’ speaking anxiety. D.Charade This is a familiar and recognized activity that makes laughter and fun. When things are presented in an interesting way, the students’ brains are more receptive to new knowledge. Besides, they also feel that if they have fun while learning, they are more motivated and receive that feedback. A major benefit of playing charades in the classroom is that it helps develop students' listening, speaking, and reading skills, while also strengthening vocabulary. Design The study comprised both quantitative and qualitative methods. In the quantitative method, two questionnaires for students were used to collect the data. Questionnaire I (Appendix 1, Table.1) was adopted from 33 items of Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) by Horwitz et al. (1986). This questionnaire selected 22 items from 33 items. The FLCAS consist of 5-point Likert type scale, which ranges from “Strongly agree” to “Strongly disagree.” It was used before the cooperative learning sessions of English. E.Debate A debate is always a good way to begin a class. Students will get used to the different modes of argument and sometimes the debates themselves can become quite heated. It will, overall, make for a very interesting class. In Questionnaire II (Appendix 2, Table.2), 12 items from He (2013)’s questionnaire was combined with the first questionnaire and it is used to test students’ FLSA level after the cooperative learning sessions of English. In analyzing the data, the author used coding and averages in percentages. RESULTS AND FINDINGS The data obtained from the first questionnaire before using cooperative learning revealed that there were many reasons for why the students encounter speaking anxiety. The highest reason of the students speaking anxiety was they never felt quite sure of their self when speaking English in the classroom with 76% from seventy two students. The second one was they got nervous and confused when they were speaking in the class with 72%. The third position was 65% of the participants got anxious when they had been asked by the teacher in class without preparation. It stated that about 60% of students were afraid to fail in the English speaking test. The other items : the students’ fear of making mistakes in front of the teacher, their lack of vocabulary, their fear of negative evaluation from their classmates, etc. were moderate points. Interview The interview technique was chosen through face to face interview to get in depth data about speaking anxiety in EFL classroom at UCST. The participant of the interview is twelve students and five of language teachers at UCST. The interview questions consist of open ended questions. These questions gave chance to the students and teachers to express their point of views and experiences about speaking anxiety. The interview qualitative data were analyzed through content analysis. Treatments The author used a variety of activities to help in reducing students’ level of anxiety in the classroom. All the activities were done in pair or group work and some are described in this paper as samples. A.Find Someone Who This is a great icebreaker for the beginning of the course. It’s also a good way for the teacher to learn students’ names and According to the results of interview with students, the four students out of twelve stated that they felt anxious and so nervous when came forward to speak English because they were afraid if they made a lot of mistakes. The statement of students showed that the speaking English in front of class became a trigger of the students’ confidence. Through @ IJTSRD | Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD26590 | Volume – 3 | Issue – 5 | July - August 2019 Page 1371

5. International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470 speaking anxiety, the students were able to create a low self- confidence. The three interviewees claimed that their EFL teachers were neither friendly nor cooperative with them. When their teachers were very strict, they got more anxious. Several students said some situations cause the trigger and anxiety. In the situations like pronouncing the words, speaking in front of class, the students felt that their English was not fluency for speaking. Some of the students did not have much collection of the words or English vocabulary, and confused to create sentences while speaking without preparation. The results of the five EFL teachers described that in language teaching most of them used the traditional teaching method and focused on reading and writing task mostly. Due to the exam oriented test system, they tried to finish the target curriculum in time. They had difficulties for supporting the students in speaking practice. The three out of five teachers expressed that the students could not have the chance of practicing speaking skill in the classroom in the limited hours of time period. Even they taught the students how to speak in target language, they could not allow them to speak and practice it. There was no time for group work discussion. This led the students to be lack of self- confidence and occurred foreign language speaking anxiety (FLSA) when the students were tested in speaking test. They faced difficulties to speak on something in English during test that had not practiced before. The two teachers also said that they managed to get opportunities for speaking practicing in classroom. The interviewees found that most students got anxious when they had been asked in class without any preparation. Furthermore, they were afraid that the other students would laugh at them when they spoke the foreign language. In addition, the teachers stated that students experienced speaking anxiety due to their poor pronunciation and intonation. It is found that students’ speaking anxiety occurred concerning the relationship between the teacher and students were the lack of support, lack of understanding due to language barrier, the fear of the teacher’s negative feedback and time limitation for practicing the target language inside the classroom. In students’ questionnaire II, after implementing with cooperative learning strategies, all the students responded a significantly decreasing tendency in anxiety scores. Their highest reason of the speaking anxiety decreased from 76% to 54%, the second one was from 72% to 40% and the third position was from 65% to 32%. 75% of students expressed that they did not feel so anxious when speaking a FL in a friendly environment. The participants also reported that a patient teacher helps reduce their nervousness in speaking a FL. The students reported that communicating within the group, they found out different views of from their own to solve the problems. They could help other students who had difficulty in learning English, with a group spirit of cooperation. Students discussed the material with each other, helped one another understand it, and encouraged each other to work hard, and of course that enhanced their fluency of speaking. The results showed that students were very much engaged to the mentioned ideas. After applying cooperative learning approach with the supporting of students’ needs such as useful language expressions, vocabulary words, instructions for tasks, well preparation and watching some real life TV/ Web programmes in a FL, they were enthusiasm to participate in language practice and could overcome speaking anxiety. In addition, students’ responses revealed that the teacher’s personal characteristic and behaviours were helpful in reducing their speaking anxiety. The teacher’s humourous, knowledgeable, lively patient and good at enhancing students’ interest in foreign language are the important factors to help reduce anxiety of students. The teachers also emphasized the importance of creating a friendly or relaxed atmosphere for students. In this situation, students would not worry about making mistakes and they could try themselves less anxious at speaking English by making themselves more familiar with this language. DISCUSSION The goal of this study is to suggest some effective ways to alleviate students’ FLSA. The findings of the study through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods revealed that the factors of causing speaking anxiety were related to communication apprehension, test anxiety and fear of negative evaluation. When speaking English in the classroom the anxiety can affect students’ motivation and ability. Students who have low motivation may have low proficiency and as a result be more anxious in language classes. The negative reinforcements like students’ inadequate skill development, being laughed by classmates for a few mistakes or even punished by the teacher in English speaking might lead to high levels of speaking anxiety. Teachers who organize carry out tasks and assess student’s performance undeniably play a pivotal role in addressing speaking anxiety. The teacher’s awareness about the students’ needs and psychology factors will help to minimize their anxiety. Teachers’ personal characteristics are very effective factors to reduce students’ speaking anxiety. Teacher’s humour, especially, can help reduce students’ anxiety and stimulate their desire to participate in speaking activities by creating a relaxing classroom atmosphere. In order to relieve students’ FLSA, teachers as well as students themselves should enhance their awareness of making good use of humour in daily FL teaching and learning. The present study also found that having students work in pairs or small groups help reduce their FLSA, since they tend to feel safe in groups and are usually more eager to participate in speaking activities, and group work enhances cooperation among students as well. Furthermore, teachers should try to form groups with mixed-ability students, to academically equal tasks, and to use the same questioning strategies for all groups so that the learners would not feel that they are treated differently with respect to their foreign language proficiency. A friendly and supportive learning environment is acknowledged to be able to lower learners’ anxiety. The present data also suggest that a friendly classroom environment requires the effort of both the teacher and students. The teacher should be friendly and try to create a low-anxiety classroom, and students should also be friendly to one another and try not to exert unnecessary challenge groups with @ IJTSRD | Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD26590 | Volume – 3 | Issue – 5 | July - August 2019 Page 1372

6. International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470 peer pressure on others. In such an environment, students would feel encouraged to take part in oral activities without constantly worrying about being negatively evaluated. Another effective way in reducing students’ FLSA is teachers’ patience and it is acknowledged to be an important personal quality. It is unavoidable for students to make mistakes when they are struggling to express themselves in a language not their own. Hence, teachers should be tolerant to students’ minor errors that do not affect the communication process, which will release pressure and strengthen students’ self-confidence. Moreover, teachers should do praising their efforts, provide encouraging comments on student’s attempts, give written or oral feedback and have private talk with the students outside the classroom to build the enjoyable and relief atmosphere with them. This situation can reinforce them as the safe learning environment. Nevertheless, it is important for teachers to devote more attention in students’ speaking anxiety, to create more practice time and to keep encouraging and motivating them to speak English in the class. CONCLUSION This paper was focused on reducing of students’ FLSA through cooperative learning approach. The study was conducted with a group of students at UCST. The quantitative data was collected through pre and post learning by the use of (FLCAS) ( Horwitz et al. 1986) and He (2013). The data was analyzed in coding and averages in percentages. Face to face interview was included to collect qualitative data which were analyzed through content analysis. It is found that the using strategy not only can be beneficial to help to reduce the students’ anxiety, but also can increase the students’ self-confidence, bring their enthusiasm, initiative, imagination and creativity. According to this study, students’ speaking anxiety level was different due to students’ personal reasons and some teaching procedures. It is important for teachers to be responsive to the needs of the students, and for teachers and students to work as a team, dealing with speech anxiety together. In conclusion, all foreign language teachers need to motivate their students; encourage them to speak; and to allow them to make mistakes without punishment. Teachers should make adjustments in the language class to prevent negative feelings toward English language learning. They should try to give more speaking practicing opportunities in the classroom in order to fulfill of students’ language progress. Then, they also need to use the application of modern approaches that lay emphasis on enhancing learning opportunities in an environment that is conductive to learning. 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Indonesian Journal of English Language Teaching, 3: pp.119-134. [13]MacIntyre, P.D.(1995). How does anxiety affect foreign language learning: A reply to sparks and Ganschow. The Modern Language Journal, 79 (1), pp.90-99. [14]MaCroskey, J. C. and J.A. Daly. (1984) Avoiding Communication: shyness, communication apprehension. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California, USA. reticence and [15]Nakahashi, T. L. (2007). Techniques for reducing foreign language anxiety: Results of a successful intervention study. Retrieved August 12, 2010, from http://air.lib.akitau.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/10295/54 7/3/kk9-6.pdf [16]Pattanapichet, F., & Changpueng, P.(2012 ) Cooperative Learning: An approach to reduce Students’ anxiety in learning English. Executive journal, pp.61-66. Retrieved http://www.bu.ac.th/knowledgecenter/executive_jour nal/oct_dec_12/pdf/aw09.pdf [17]Rafada, S. H. (2017). Major causes of Saudi learners’ speaking anxiety in EFL classroom. 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7. International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470 Journal of English Language Education, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp.54 -71. class. International Journal of Education, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 3-7. [18]Rahayu, W.A. (2016). The cause factors of speaking anxiety in EFL classroom. Jurnal Dinamika DotCom, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp.41- 46 [25]Worde, R. V. (2003).Students’ perception on foreign language anxiety. Virginia Community College System. [26]Yahya, M. (2013). Measuring speaking anxiety among speech communication course students at the Arab American University of Jenin (AAUJ). European Social Sciences Research Journal, 1 (3), pp.229- 248 APPENDICES Appendix: I Questionnaire I A note for student: This questionnaire is designed for a study on ‘Learners’ foreign language speaking anxiety in the English language teaching. Your answers will not be disclosed and used only for the purposes of the study. Thank you for your co-operation. Questionnaire for Students Please circle the option that best matches your feeling about each statement. There are no right or wrong options, all depending on your first reaction. The options stand for: SD = strongly disagree, D = disagree, N = neither agree nor disagree, A = agree, SA = strongly agree. [19]Sari, D. (2017). Speaking anxiety as a factor in studying EFL. English Education Journal. Vol.8, No.2, pp.177- 186. [20]Speilberger, C.D. (1983). Anxiety. NY Academic Press. [21]Tanveer, M. (2007). Investigation of the factors that cause language anxiety for ESL/EFL learners in learning speaking skills and the influence it casts on communication in the target language. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. University of Glasglow. United Kingdom. [22]Toubot, A. M., Seng, G. H., & Abdullah, A. B. A.(2017). Overview of speaking anxiety among EFL students. The Social Sciences 12 (11): pp.1938-1947 [23]University of Cambridge Service.(2012). Anxiety and panic. Retrieved www.councelling.cam.ac.uk./ selfhelp/newselhe/anxi from https:// [24]Wichadee, S. (2010). Cooperative learning approach: a successful way of reducing learning anxiety in an EFL Table.1 No. 1. 2. 3. Statements SD D N A SA I never feel quite sure of myself when I am speaking in my foreign language class. I don't worry about making mistakes in language class. I tremble when I know that I'm going to be called on in language class. It frightens me when I don't understand what the teacher is saying in the foreign language. I keep thinking that the other students are better at languages than I am. I am usually at ease during tests in my language class. I start to panic when I have to speak without preparation in language class. In language class, I can get so nervous I forget things I know. It embarrasses me to volunteer answers in my language class. I would not be nervous speaking the foreign language with native speakers. Even if I am well prepared for language class, I feel anxious. I feel confident when I speak in foreign language class. I am afraid that my language teacher is ready to correct every mistake. I can feel my heart pounding when I'm going to be called on in language class. I don't feel pressure to prepare very well for language class. I always feel that the other students speak the foreign language better than I do. I feel very self-conscious about speaking the foreign language in front of other students. I get nervous and confused when I am speaking in my language class. I get nervous when I don't understand every word the language teacher says. I feel overwhelmed by the number of rules I have to learn to speak a foreign language. I am afraid that the other students will laugh at me when I speak the foreign language. I get nervous when the language teacher asks questions which I haven't prepared in advance. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. Appendix 2 Questionnaire II Please circle the option that best matches your feeling about each statement. There are no right or wrong options, all depending on your first reaction. The options stand for: SD = strongly disagree, D = disagree, N = neither agree nor disagree, A = agree, SA = strongly agree. @ IJTSRD | Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD26590 | Volume – 3 | Issue – 5 | July - August 2019 Page 1374

8. International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470 Table.2 No. 1. 2. 3. Statements SD D N A SA I never feel quite sure of myself when I am speaking in my foreign language class. I don't worry about making mistakes in language class. I tremble when I know that I'm going to be called on in language class. It frightens me when I don't understand what the teacher is saying in the foreign language. I keep thinking that the other students are better at languages than I am. I am usually at ease during tests in my language class. I start to panic when I have to speak without preparation in language class. In language class, I can get so nervous I forget things I know. It embarrasses me to volunteer answers in my language class. I would not be nervous speaking the foreign language with native speakers. Even if I am well prepared for language class, I feel anxious. I feel confident when I speak in foreign language class. I am afraid that my language teacher is ready to correct every mistake. I can feel my heart pounding when I'm going to be called on in language class. I don't feel pressure to prepare very well for language class. I always feel that the other students speak the foreign language better than I do. I feel very self-conscious about speaking the foreign language in front of other students. I get nervous and confused when I am speaking in my language class. I get nervous when I don't understand every word the language teacher says. I feel overwhelmed by the number of rules I have to learn to speak a foreign language. I am afraid that the other students will laugh at me when I speak the foreign language. I get nervous when the language teacher asks questions which I haven't prepared in advance. Having classmates work in small groups helps reduce my nervousness when speaking a FL. It helps reduce my nervousness to talk with other students about the fears in speaking a FL. Participating in a supporting group or activity (e.g. a FL corner) helps reduce my fears in speaking that language. Doing relaxation exercises (e.g. productive self-talk) helps reduce my fears in speaking that language. If accuracy is not the focus, I will not be so nervous about speaking a FL. I do not feel so anxious when speaking a FL in a friendly environment. Teachers’ encouragement makes me feel relaxed when speaking a FL. A humourous teacher helps reduce my nervousness in speaking a FL. A patient teacher helps reduce my nervousness in speaking a FL. I feel relaxed about speaking a FL if I know that mistakes are part of the language learning process and made by everyone. I feel relieved about speaking a FL if my teacher corrects my mistakes indirectly (e.g. just repeat the right form instead of saying that I am wrong). Playing language games helps reduce my nervousness in speaking a FL. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. @ IJTSRD | Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD26590 | Volume – 3 | Issue – 5 | July - August 2019 Page 1375